101 Uses for a Dead Uzi
by MacBedh
Summary: "Now here's my plan . . . " Terrorism, tourism, and especially MacGyverisms. Rated for whumpage.
1. Scrap Metal

**101 Uses for a Dead Uzi**

- x -_  
_

Moshe ben Aaron usually liked Damascus. The nightlife was interesting, the food was good, pretty girls were plentiful and bombs were scarce – relatively speaking – the crowds, especially in the souks, provided excellent cover for a variety of activities, and the Syrian security forces were so inept (again, relatively speaking) that it was comparatively easy to operate there.

He couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong this time, but Damascus was no longer on his list of favourite places – assuming that he was still in Damascus, that is, or even anywhere near it. Not that it truly mattered. He wouldn't be keeping the list much longer, after all. For a _katsa_ – a Mossad operative – the knowledge was part of everyday life: espionage was punishable by death, usually by hanging, if you weren't simply shot out of hand. It could get worse than that, of course. Much worse.

It hadn't been too bad so far, but then, he'd only been a prisoner for a day – he thought. He was pretty sure it was only a day. And for most of the last several hours, he'd had the feeling that he wasn't much of a priority. That surprised him.

To be a _katsa _was to be overlooked – when things went well. Things had gone disastrously wrong; that's why he was here in this stuffy, cramped, airless cell, God knew where, his cuffed wrists looped over a hook in the wall out of his reach, his hands and arms long since gone numb with the incessant strain of the unnatural position.

The future, what there was left of it, had to be regarded with fatalistic pessimism. The present was best ignored. But it was odd, in the circumstances, to feel ignored in turn. Once you were caught, you weren't supposed to be overlooked. Something must be distracting them . . . whoever 'they' were. Moshe hadn't been able to figure that out yet.

There was a scraping of approaching footsteps in the corridor outside the cell; someone was coming, several large and noisy someones by the sound of it. A key turned in a heavy lock. Moshe let his head sag to the side and pretended to be unconscious, watching through barely slitted eyes as the door swung open, admitting a draft of slightly less fetid air.

Two men entered, dragging a third between them, the long form of a tall man who sprawled, limp and unconscious, as they hauled him over to another wall of the cell and hung his cuffed wrists on another hook. The guards wore the same nondescript not-quite-uniform as Moshe's captors, leaving him still frustrated in his inability to identify his opponents properly.

The cell door crashed shut, the key scraped in the lock again, and the steps receded into silence. Moshe opened both eyes and studied his new companion, wondering if the man was a colleague, a plant, or a distraction. Possibly the distraction that had taken the enemy's attention off of Moshe for most of the day, in which case, he owed the man his thanks . . . not that they were in any position for thanks to amount to much.

The sight wasn't promising.

Probably an American. By his clothes, an American tourist, God help him. He wore khaki cargo pants, scuffed athletic shoes, and a short-sleeved shirt of a painfully brilliant shade of blue. Long sandy hair hung down over his closed eyes. The shirt was torn and dirty, and the hair was matted with blood; from what Moshe could see of the man's face, he'd been worked over thoroughly. _So, nobody really likes American tourists. But still._

It did give Moshe another thin piece of information on their captors: the Syrian government, hungry for tourist dollars, didn't approve of snatching American tourists off the streets. Far better to let them run loose, so that the fine Syrian people could best pursue the common goal of separating the tourists from their dollars as rapidly and thoroughly as possible. Beatings were frowned on, and chaining folks up in airless cells wasn't at all popular.

So whoever it was, it probably wasn't the Syrians, not officially at least. That only left a few hundred possibilities, all of them worse.

Sometimes, all you could do was try to keep things from getting worse. They'd get worse anyway, but no sense in just letting it all happen.

"Hey, friend!" Moshe called out urgently in English, hoping that he'd guessed the nationality right. "Wake up!"

Moshe's new companion began to stir, letting out a dull moan. His eyes fluttered, but didn't open.

"Wake up, for God's sake! You're not going to like waking up, I promise you – but if you don't get your feet up under you, your hands will be dead meat before you know it."

The man winced, opened dark eyes made hazy with pain and confusion, looked at Moshe without comprehension. He flinched, and then winced again; with all the damage to his face, the grimace must have hurt. He tried to shift his weight and cried out in pain, his body swinging from his dangling arms. No wonder: Moshe could see blood oozing at the edges of the cuffs. Pressure cuts, and no surprise, with the American's full weight on them.

"That's it, keep trying," he urged. "Get your feet under you. It'll help. Don't give up, whatever you do. Gangrene smells awful in this heat, trust me."

Incredibly, the man's glazed eyes focused on him, and the bleeding lips curled into a crooked attempt at a smile. "Can't have that . . . " the reply was a gasp, and the accent was unmistakably American. So were the teeth.

So was the stubbornness. Moshe watched with astonishment as his companion tried to pull his feet up, failed, then gritted his teeth, grabbed hold of the looped chain on his handcuffs, and bodily hauled himself up until he could get his legs under him. His chest and arm muscles stood out sharply and he gasped with the effort. Finally he was standing, swaying, steadying himself with the chain, the weight finally off the lacerated wrists. He flexed his fingers and winced again.

"Thanks," he said at last. "You're right. They almost feel like dead meat already."

"Well, the rest of you already looks like hamburger," Moshe observed. "Whatever you did to piss them off, it must have been good." He paused, waiting to see if the American would volunteer any information, then continued. "I shouldn't say I'm glad to meet you, since we're both in trouble, but what the hell, I'm glad to meet you. I'm Moshe."

"Name's MacGyver."

"American?"

"Yup."

"And how are you enjoying your visit to historic Damascus?"

The veil of confusion descended again briefly. "Damascus? This isn't Damascus. Not unless – no, I'm sure I wasn't out cold long enough for that . . . "

"Huh." Moshe frowned. "My error, perhaps. Where do _you_ think we are?"

"Baalbek."

Moshe let his head fall back against the hard stone wall. "Oy. Oh, merciful God, take me now. _Baalbek_?" He winced melodramatically. "You're sure?"

"Well, that's where I was when they snatched me."

"Forgive me if this seems less than hospitable, but what the hell were you doing in Baalbek? They don't like American tourists there, you know. They don't much like anyone there, except Hezbollah. God help us. That must be who's got us."

"Probably." MacGyver was blinking, looking around, his stance becoming steadier and his gaze growing clearer. "As for why I was there – I'm not a tourist. I'm with the Phoenix Foundation. UNESCO wanted to send in observers to see if the ruins had sustained any more damage during the last few years since it was listed as a World Heritage site."

"So who'd you piss off, that you should draw such a short straw?"

"Nobody. I volunteered."

"God help you."

"That'd be nice if we could manage it . . . I think there's something about helpin' yourself, though." MacGyver was looking around the cell, peering into the corners as best as he could. There was little light in the cell; the daylight that leaked in through chinks and cracks, and oozed under the door, was beginning to shift to orange as the day waned. It would be night soon, although the stuffy cell was unlikely to grow any less uncomfortable with the drop in temperature.

"Not much here . . . " he muttered.

"What, you were expecting luxury accommodations?"

"Well, no," Mac replied absently. After a few minutes, he looked back at Moshe's expression and added, with a shade of annoyance, "Y'know, they say humour's a cultural thing – but whatever you've got that you're finding funny right now, I'd be glad to share the joke."

Moshe tried to shrug, drawing a sharp protest from his cramped shoulders. "Just something I remembered – a foolish cartoon drawing – I saw it, oh, many years ago. I had forgotten it. There were these two men – raggedy, bearded prisoners, you know the type – hanging from chains in a cell. Very like this one. And one man says to the other, 'Now here's my plan . . . ' " Moshe shrugged again. "Not really very funny."

MacGyver grinned, a frank, undaunted smile that belied the bloody gashes on his face. "Oh, I don't know about that. It depends on who the joke's on in the end."

"So why did they grab _you_? Come to that, why'd they half kill you? I didn't think the CIA had any operatives in Baalbek – "

"I'm not with the CIA. I _told_ you. I work for the Phoenix Foundation. The problem is, I used to be with the DXS a few years back, and I'm pretty sure they know that." MacGyver had been twisting his head, peering up at his manacled wrists and the hook in the wall above them. He stretched out his fingers as far as he could, standing on tiptoe, only just managing to brush the hook with his fingertips.

"I already tried that," Moshe remarked.

"Anything you haven't tried?" Mac grunted, still intent on his hands.

"Yeah, sure. Anything that works." Moshe studied the other man's battered face. "DXS, eh? I have to say, I don't think they're buying the idea that you're an innocent civilian."

"Well, they mighta been put off by the whole bomb business."

Moshe gave an exasperated sigh. "A wise man would not ask, but I never claimed to be wise. _What_ bomb business?"

"Somebody planted a bomb in the lobby of the Hotel Palmyra in Baalbek. The local DXS ops chief called me in to defuse it. It's not much of a hotel, but it seemed better to take the bomb apart before it messed anything up."

Moshe stared. "You're a civilian, you say, and the DXS – the _DXS!_ – called _you_ in on bomb squad duty?"

It was Mac's turn to shrug. "I was in the area." He had swung himself around so that he was facing the wall, and he began to twist the cuff on his right wrist, turning it around and around. He held the chain that led from the other cuff steady with the fingers of his left hand, frowning upwards as he worked. Moshe felt the back of his neck prickle as he realised what MacGyver was doing.

With each turn of the cuff, the chain was wrapping around itself, the links jamming together, gradually becoming semi-rigid. At the same time, the chain was shortening, and Mac had less slack with which to work. Moshe held his breath, waiting to find out if the American would run out of room before he could manage to get free, leaving himself hanging even more painfully. Mac was already gritting his teeth as the tightening cuffs dug into the raw skin of his scraped wrists.

The fingers of MacGyver's right hand delicately eased the unsteady column of the twisted chain upwards; in the hot, breathless air of the cell, even the dust motes seemed to pause as he carefully lifted the looped chain free from the hook. With a heavy whuff of exhaled breath, he let his hands fall in front of him, still cuffed together, wincing as the stressed muscles of his shoulders howled their protest.

Moshe barely remembered, in his excitement, to keep his voice low. "God be praised, you _did_ it! You did it, my friend!"

"Yeah." The tall American crossed the cell in a few strides and freed Moshe's wrists from their hook, catching the man as he slumped to the floor.

"Sorry about that . . . my legs . . . I've been standing there for hours. Speaking of dead meat." Moshe set his teeth against the prickles of fire that began to run through his hands and arms and legs.

"So what's your story?" MacGyver eased him down into a sitting position.

"My story?"

"How'd you end up hanging from the wall of a Hezbollah hidey-hole when you thought you were in Damascus? Why'd they grab you?"

The stone floor was dusty, but cool. Cooler, anyway. "I should know what makes a gang of terrorists do anything?"

MacGyver gave him a long look, touched with disappointment. "Okaaaay." He stood up again and walked over to the heavy door, examining it closely. "Maybe they think you're Mossad?"

Moshe shrugged.

"Are you?"

By God, the man was persistent. "Would I admit it if I was? Even to you? Nothing against you, Yank."

Moshe let his head rest against the wall. The cell swam in front of his eyes. Through the fog, he watched dully as the American returned to the wall where he'd been left dangling, pulled something from a trouser pocket and began to work on the hook. After a few minutes, a screech of metal on stone announced success, and the hook fell out of the wall into MacGyver's hand.

"What the hell have you got there?"

Mac held up his makeshift prying tool. "They took my pocketknife, but they musta figured this was just a piece of junk."

Moshe blinked. "That's a receiver cover from an Uzi. Do you always carry bits of dead Uzis in your pockets? Pity you don't have the rest of it stashed somewhere."

For the first time, something hard and opaque shuttered closed behind the honest, open American face. "Good thing I don't." MacGyver returned to the door and bent over the lock, delicately fishing through the keyhole with the hook. After a moment, he dug another piece of metal out of his pockets and set to work again. Moshe squinted; it was the selector lever, presumably from the same Uzi. Former Uzi.

"You're sure you don't have the rest of the pieces somewhere? Up your sleeve, perhaps?"

Mac ignored the question; he was biting his tongue as he probed the locking mechanism. After a moment, he asked, "If we get out of this cell, we'll still need to get outta Dodge. You got any contacts in Baalbek?"

"Don't you have contacts? I thought you said UNESCO sent you. And it seems to me the DXS owes you a favour, not to mention the owners of the Hotel Palmyra."

"Yeah, but a little help on your side would be nice. Aren't there any local _sayanim_?"

Moshe's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

MacGyver stopped working on the lock, straightened up, and turned fiercely towards his cellmate. "Aw, c'mon, Moshe, would you let it go already? Secrecy's got its place, and this is _not_ the place! Mossad has civilian volunteers on tap all over the planet – you can't expect me to believe there aren't any _sayanim _at all in Baalbek. We're gonna need some help if we're gonna get out of this mess in one piece."

Moshe studiously examined his feet in their dusty shoes. After a long, silent moment, he heard the clink of MacGyver's manacles as the American resumed his hopeless tinkering with the lock. Moshe wiggled his reviving fingers and eased the cuffs on his own wrists, trying to find a patch of skin that would burn less under the weight of the intractable metal. He wondered how much adrenaline MacGyver must be riding, to be able to ignore his injuries like that.

When he heard the unmistakable sound of the unlocked door creaking open, he lifted his head and stared in confusion. He hadn't heard footsteps approaching, but surely the mad American hadn't actually managed to pick the lock with a handful of scrap metal . . .

MacGyver was cautiously peering out into the corridor. He pulled his head back and looked at Moshe. "You comin'?"

- x -_  
_


	2. Spare Parts

**Two**

- x -_  
_

The corridor was long and dim, with only a few small slits of windows high up under the arched roof, letting in scraps of fading daylight. MacGyver guessed that the windows were right at ground level. He looked around at the darkening hallway, feeling the weight of the ancient town press down on him. "Dang. I have no idea which way they brought me in."

"No surprise there. You were long past watching the scenery, except for the lovely images inside your own eyelids." Moshe gestured to the right. "That's the way out. Or at least it was the way in."

"Where are we, anyway?"

"I should know? I didn't even know I was in Baalbek. If that's where we are."

MacGyver squinted at the door of the cell they had just left. "That door's newer than the rest of this place . . . I wonder . . . "

"You could wonder later, maybe? Somewhere else? Somewhere safer?" Moshe set out for the end of the corridor, MacGyver following. Each man noted, without comment, that the other stepped with the light tread of practiced stealth.

The hallway ended at another doorway, with another locked door. MacGyver peered in the deepening gloom at the arch of the doorway, ran long fingers over the abstract carving above it. "I bet we're in the old Ottoman section of the town . . . this place looks old. Maybe it was a _madrasa_, or someone's house." He glanced over his shoulder. "The corridor should run the length of the building. Any chance the other end might be open?"

Moshe shook his head. "It's more likely to have fallen in. I don't think this place was any too solidly built."

"It was solidly built to start with – several hundred years and half a dozen earthquakes ago," Mac murmured. He'd pulled out his makeshift tools again and was working on the lock, half by instinct in the dark. "Upstairs it'll probably be mostly one big room, with other little rooms around it. That musta been a storage room they had us in, or a strongroom."

"It certainly wasn't the wine cellar. You a drinking man, MacGyver?"

"Not really."

"Pity. If we get out of this, I'd like to buy you a drink."

"Sure thing. Just make it orange juice or something." The lock rasped, coughed, and clicked open.

Moshe grabbed his arm as MacGyver started to push the door open, and drew him back, away from the exit. "Not so fast, my friend – they left us without a guard at the cell, but what will they have done at this door? I didn't see a lot when they brought me in – I was barely conscious – but I remember a flight of steps just beyond this door, leading up. And there was a guard with an Uzi at the top of the steps. An intact Uzi, with all working parts, I should point out."

"Yeah, well, that's his problem."

"It's going to be our problem if we want to get past him."

MacGyver frowned. "Any chance of going around?"

"You any good at walking through walls?"

Mac shook his head. "Can't say I like the idea of climbing up a flight of stairs into an armed guard . . . be nice if he'd come down here and join the party."

Moshe grinned. "Any chance you'd let me borrow that receiver cover?"

- x -_  
_

There _was_ a guard at the top of the steps; he might not have noticed the scrape and click of the lock opening, but he did notice the metallic clatter at the foot of the steps, and hurried down to find out what the disturbance was. Moshe was waiting just inside the doorway to the underground corridor, and he seized the guard silently as the man passed and broke his neck with casual expertise.

At Moshe's insistence, MacGyver had been waiting several yards farther down the hallway. He flinched at the unmistakable sound of the guard's neck snapping.

Mac knew it was a futile gesture, but he couldn't keep from kneeling beside the body, touching fingertips to the neck, feeling for the pulse that he knew wasn't there. His eyes met Moshe's.

"You didn't have to kill him."

Moshe looked genuinely annoyed. "You think he'd have hesitated himself? What's one terrorist more or less?"

Mac's face set into a stony blankness as he picked up the guard's Uzi and began to dismantle it with swift, expert movements. Light was spilling down the steps, aiding him: the gun melted in his hands into a heap of metal components.

Moshe had started, belatedly, to reach for the Uzi, but it was too late.

"_**What the hell are you doing**__?_" The words were no less fierce for being delivered in a hoarse whisper.

Mac's head snapped up, his dark eyes smoldering, uncompromising. The bruises and scrapes stood out in sharp contrast on a face gone pale with emotion. "Gettin' a fresh supply of spare parts – and gettin' rid of temptation." He tossed the trigger away towards the far end of the corridor.

"We could have _used _that gun!"

MacGyver picked through the collection, choose several items, kicked the rest into a scatter across the stone floor of the corridor. "Yeah? It wouldn't make us any less outnumbered. Aren't there enough ghosts in Baalbek already?"

Moshe ran a distraught hand through his hair. "By all that's holy, Yank . . . you must be insane!"

Mac's grin had an impish tilt to it. He picked up the bolt stop and bent over the manacles on his wrists. "Isn't there something in the Torah about crazy people being under divine protection?"

"I don't think so. But I'm not one you should ask about the Torah. I was never my teachers' pride and joy at _shul_."

First one cuff and then the other sprang open. Mac didn't stop to examine the raw patches on his wrists where the iron had chafed; he beckoned impatiently to Moshe and bent over the second set of locks.

"Guess we'll just assume that there is." Moshe's shackles opened up more easily, iron flowers blooming in the deepening gloom. Mac stood up again.

"Let's go."

- x -_  
_

At the top of the stairs, a dim side room opened out onto a great empty shell of a dilapidated building. MacGyver peered cautiously out. Some distance away in the open central area, perhaps a dozen men were gathered near a charcoal brazier; smells of cooking thickened the warm air, mingling with the odours of dust and rank sweat, livestock and primitive plumbing. Mac's Arabic wasn't up to making out any of the half-overheard comments, but the rough camaraderie needed no translation.

MacGyver's heart sank. He could see an opening in the outer wall not too far away, where a side entrance let out into an alleyway; but in spite of the casual air of the gathering, the men were too close and too alert for there to be any hope of slipping past them unseen. He chewed his lip, then stole back down the stairs to where the dead guard lay next to his eviscerated gun. Mac hated the gruesome callousness of the need, but when he returned, he was shrugging into the man's khaki jacket, covering his own too-bright shirt. He was also carrying the long, thin tube of the Uzi barrel and several of the screws and pins that had held the gun together.

Moshe frowned in puzzlement, then nodded with a wry smirk as MacGyver slipped a metal pin into the barrel, put it to his lips and blew. They couldn't hear the soft rattle as it landed somewhere off in the darkness of the outer courtyard on the far side of the building; but after Mac had repeated the exercise four more times, the men at the brazier were beginning to nudge each other and peer out into the shadows. Exclamations in Arabic were followed by irritated orders, and several of the men fanned out towards the courtyard and the dimly seen buildings beyond. One turned towards the steps leading to the cellar and barked out a question.

Without missing a beat, Moshe acknowledged the demand with a colloquially fluent Arabic grumble and curse that had MacGyver raising impressed eyebrows. The militant turned back to the brazier.

Mac and Moshe slipped away into the shadows.

Outside the half-ruined _madrasa_, the houses and streets of Baalbek formed a tangled maze. The eastern horizon was beginning to blush with the imminent moonrise, but for the present, the shadows of the buildings were thick pools of ink. The two men hurried off blindly at first, seeking only to put distance between themselves and their captors, and to avoid any other contact for as long as possible.

Both men had sharp ears, and the knack of stepping into shadows with the stillness that evades notice by the casual observer. They were able to dodge the occasional passer-by, and most of the residents of Baalbek seemed to be indoors. The smells of food cooking grew steadily more maddening, although their parched mouths were no longer able to water.

Mac kept an eye on the glowing horizon, careful not to let the anarchy of the winding streets lure them into doubling back on their trail, breathing the night air deeply through his nose. When he caught a scent, or a sense, of dampness, he touched Moshe on the shoulder. They approached the well cautiously, aware of the vulnerability of the open square, but no-one was about.

Moshe had to hold himself under tight control, to take small, careful sips and hold the water in his mouth before he swallowed it, giving his system time to adjust. He was surprised to see the American doing the same – he'd expected him to gulp thirstily. In between sips, MacGyver shed the dead guard's jacket and slipped out of his own tattered shirt. He hunted for a comparatively clean patch of fabric to soak with water and apply carefully to some of the contusions on his face, but the first attempts ended in wincing failure, and he gave up.

"That was some beating you took," Moshe murmured. "You holding up okay?"

Mac leaned his arms on the edge of the well and rested his head on them briefly as a wave of dizziness washed over him. "I'm tryin' not to think about it."

After a few minutes, he carefully eased the shirt back on. Even in the dim light, Moshe had seen the galaxy of welts and bruises that mottled his torso. His mind shied away from the thought that, but for the American, he would have been the centre of the same attentions.

MacGyver jerked his head and led Moshe into the labyrinth again, this time with purpose. The moon had begun to show over the rooftops, and Mac glanced at it often.

"Are we going anywhere in particular, or are we just going?" Moshe whispered.

"We're headin' west. That's where the ruins are – or ought to be."

"You're sure of this? How can you tell?"

"Trust me. I was a Boy Scout."

"And this helps? This is Lebanon, not Yellowstone!"

"Same moon. It rises about the same way anywhere. You just gotta allow for latitude."

"If you say so." Moshe peered up at the moon, round and full and bright gold.

"You spend too much time in the city. You oughta get out more."

"I like cities! They're nice and crowded."

Mac glanced at him, but didn't reply. They had come to the edge of the town, and the ruins were spread before them.

MacGyver breathed deeply now, his throat no longer tormented with thirst. He could smell the dry, spicy scents of the night, the particular fragrance the open earth gives up to the night sky when the harsh demands of the sun are withdrawn. The moonlight was growing clearer, although its brilliance was always deceptive, concealing more than it revealed.

Before them, the surviving pillars of the colonnade of the great Temple of Zeus showed stark against the night sky. The Temple of Bacchus crouched on its own rise, off to their left, so well preserved it almost seemed newly built. The ancient sanctuary lay empty under the moonlight, abandoned and ignored by the latter-day inhabitants of a town too caught up in the strife of the current century to think about the remnants of a bygone age.

Moshe was looking around as well, but he wasn't paying attention to the ruins; he studied the nearby buildings. "Yes! – _Finally_. Pity we had to come all this way, but I know where we are now. I can find my contact from here. We can get out of this rat trap." He turned back towards the maze of Baalbek.

MacGyver made no move to follow him. Moshe turned and glared at him. "Come on, Yank. I thought you wanted safe passage out of here. Aren't you coming?"

"Nope. I got something to take care of first."

Moshe's eyes narrowed. "You got something you haven't told me about, don't you? I _knew_ it!" He stepped up to Mac, peering up at the tall American. MacGyver didn't move. "You never _did_ really explain why they damn near took you apart . . . or what the hell you're doing in Baalbek with a pocketful of spare Uzi parts."

Mac glanced up at the rising moon again, then turned to Moshe. When he spoke, he sounded almost angry. "Look, Moshe. You can come with me and help me, if you're willing to – and I mean _really_ willing. I could use the help. I don't know Baalbek, except for the ruins, and I could really use some help getting out safely. But you don't have to. You don't owe me anything."

"By _God_, Yank – that's not for you to decide, who owes what!"

"You'll be safer if you go now."

"Who wants to be safe? If I wanted safety, I should never have joined Mossad."

The admission shimmered in the air between them.

"Okay." Mac grinned, then grew serious again. "But if you come with me, it's gotta be on my terms. No more killing. You got that?"

Moshe looked up to heaven, raised open hands to the night sky, rolled his eyes, set his teeth, and lowered his head to meet MacGyver's gaze. "Have at it, then. Your game, your rules. Where are we going?"

- x -_  
_


	3. Now Here's My Plan

**Three**

- x -_  
_

The ruins were crisscrossed with the signs of archeological excavations from different generations, some begun decades before, some abandoned in mid-dig when violence had broken out. The ground was treacherous beyond belief, and the deceptive wash of soft moonlight hid sudden trenches and holes in random locations. After his second stumble into near disaster, Moshe stayed in MacGyver's footsteps.

Mac led him, surefooted and confident, around crumbling walls and pediments carved in half-seen riots of ancient stonework. In the moonlight, some of the carvings looked sharp-edged and new again, and Moshe half-fancied that they were on the verge of stepping back through time and finding the ancient temple grounds restored to life. He shook himself. Too much strain, too long without food or rest; it did things to the mind.

Glancing around uneasily, Moshe stumbled over yet another obstacle and cursed softly but vehemently.

Mac glanced over his shoulder, his eyebrows at a quizzical tilt. "Y'know, I haven't worked with a lot of Israelis before – "

" – but some of your best friends are Jewish, right?"

"That's _not_ what I was gonna say." Mac hesitated before he plunged on. "It's just – they don't mention God very often, and when they do, they really mean it. And you – "

"I know, I know. I sound like some cheap hackneyed parody of everybody's Nice Uncle Moshe, and I swear like an American."

Moshe smiled sardonically at MacGyver's embarrassed expression. "What can I say? We grow up with God looking over our shoulders, and as adults we are mostly very, very picky about mentioning the name. Most of my people have great reverence for the holy. Me . . . I have seen and done too many unholy things." He shrugged. "Besides, I have some very devout colleagues, and it annoys the hell out of them to hear me talk like this."

Mac looked up at the moon, checking his bearings. "Is the rest of it to get folks to underestimate you?"

"You mean it's not working?" Moshe's tone was a caricature of innocence.

Mac shook his head and pressed on into the ruins. In his memory, he could hear his own voice shifting into a backwoods parody of his own accent. He'd been doing it since college – no, before that – baiting his teachers, annoying his friends, and playing the hick for half the security forces in the Eastern Bloc. He knew just how well it could work.

At last Mac reached a trench cut into the side of the ancient tell, and gestured to Moshe to stand back. He dropped into the trench, hurried to its end, shoved aside a handful of dry earth and shifted a rough-hewn stone. Moshe saw the corner of a plywood panel emerge from the rubble. MacGyver pulled out the gun barrel from the Uzi – he must have kept hold of it all this time – and used it to prise the plywood away from its setting far enough so that he could get his hands around it. He grasped it firmly and heaved.

Trickles of earth shifted, but the hillside remained in place as a dark hole opened in the side of the tell. Moshe started back, fragments of old legends crowding into his brain when he saw movement within.

Dark eyes, ringed with thick dark lashes; a woman's face, a flawless curve of cheek and arched brow, exquisite as a peri; a thick waterfall of dark hair, uncovered by any veil or _hijab_; and the muzzle of a gun, catching the moonlight as the figure emerged from the underworld.

- x -_  
_

"Dr. Awad?"

At MacGyver's words, the fierce face of the she-goblin in the cave dissolved into relief and tears; the woman flung her arms around him with a cry of joy. Mac grunted and winced at the sudden pressure on his damaged ribcage. She was still holding the gun in one hand, and Moshe sidestepped in alarm as the firing path of the muzzle careened randomly in his general direction. He delicately removed the gun – another Uzi – from her grasp and pointed it at the ground.

MacGyver ruffled the woman's hair and kissed her gently on the top of her head, murmuring soft assurances. After a few minutes, she eased her grip and looked up at him, and flinched in horror.

"MacGyver – oh my God, what have they _done_ to you . . . ?" She raised a hand towards his battered face, but he fielded it before she could touch him, and shifted around so they were facing Moshe.

The _katsa _was regarding them both with a peeved expression, shaking his head. "MacGyver. My friend. Don't do this to me. Are you telling me you took that beating for _this_? For a _woman_? You're hiding one of their _women _from them? Do you think you're James Bond or something?"

The woman glared at him, but Mac only shrugged ruefully. "Moshe, I'd like you to meet Dr. Jamila Awad, from the Phoenix Foundation. Jamila, this is Moshe ben Aaron. Don't bite his head off, okay? We need him. He's gonna help us get out of Baalbek."

Bemused, Moshe found himself switching the Uzi to his other hand and shaking the woman's hand briskly. "So you're _not_ from Baalbek? I thought . . . "

Her face looked like a refined archetype of the Middle East, but when she spoke, the accent was pure American. "Dad was from Baalbek originally. And my mom's from Beirut. _I'm_ from Boston. And if we get out of here, I'm _never_ coming back. The megaliths will have to get on without me. I'm going back to Stonehenge after this. Jesus, if there were megaliths in Greenland, I'd go there. Or Antarctica."

Mac raised an eyebrow. "Not a lot of ruined temples in Antarctica."

"You never know. Have we looked?"

Moshe was looking from Jamila to MacGyver, his brow furrowed in confusion. "She's an _archeologist_?"

"I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the megalithic foundations of the Baalbek sanctuary. I thought it would be worth the risk to actually see the place in person. I'm going to have to re-evaluate that theory in light of new evidence . . ." She looked back at the dark hole where she'd hidden for so many terrified hours and shuddered.

"We were surveying the ruins, and one of the Hezbollah head honchos saw her and liked her looks." Mac's eyes narrowed at the memory. "And then he tracked down some distant male cousin of her dad's, and the guy _gave her away_, just like that . . . "

"I thought you said they grabbed you because of a bomb!"

"Oh, that was a coupla days ago. But it did make things more complicated."

"Complicated. _Complicated_, he says. My friend, if you hadn't saved my life, you'd be the death of me." Moshe hefted the Uzi in his hand and frowned at it. "Any pieces missing?"

Jamila smiled wanly. "Just the ammunition."

Moshe removed the magazine, then drew back the breech block to check for a round in the chamber. The ejection port was empty. "Not much use, then."

"You never know." Mac shrugged.

Moshe replaced the empty magazine, released the bolt, and reset the safety. "You left her in there with nothing but an empty Uzi to protect herself?"

"An empty Uzi's better than none," Jamila said defensively. "Especially if no-one can tell that it's empty."

"In some ways, it's the best kind," Mac muttered. "Less noisy, for starters. Could you keep your voices down? Sound carries like anything around here."

"MacGyver didn't just leave me there," Jamila said. "He hid me in the burrow, told me to stay put, and, well . . . "

"Ran like a rabbit to draw them off," Mac finished drily.

"Maybe you're not so crazy after all. In Baalbek, running makes sense."

"Well, they thought they were chasing _her_ – they didn't figure out their mistake till they caught me," Mac explained. "I was doin' okay until that danged burqa got wrapped around my ankles. How do women move in those things?"

"I take it back." Moshe rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling as if the night air was far too thin. "Can we go now? Or have you got another distressed damsel tucked away somewhere?"

MacGyver grinned. "Nope, only one this time. Which way do we go from here?"

"Back to town – but if you think I can find my way out of this maze of yours, you've picked the wrong rat."

"Okay, fine. Follow me. Jamila, you okay for a short hike?"

"After hours in that hole? I could walk to Beirut if I had to. It'd be a relief."

"I'm hopin' for something a little better than that." MacGyver glanced at Moshe. "Something with wheels would be nice." His eyes sparkled. "An engine would be a bonus."

Moshe grinned. "I should warn you: it won't be anything fancy. We'll be doing well if it has all four wheels."

"At this point, I'd settle for a secondhand camel."

- x -_  
_

MacGyver led the way back through the ruins, careful not to outpace Jamila, who was staggering in spite of herself. Moshe followed in the rear, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. He found the place unnerving; the looming walls and massive stonework felt far out of human scale, and the silent weight of the centuries mocked him with its relentless endurance.

Mac kept an eye on the moon as he threaded his way through the sanctuary, wishing Moshe had been more specific about which part of town they needed to aim for. East and south of the ruins, there was a wide swath of open space before the nearest buildings provided cover again; Mac was aiming for the northern end of the precinct, where the town drew closer and there was better cover from the sparse trees.

He nearly walked into the khaki-clad figure that loomed suddenly out of the shadows of a low stone wall. The first blow to his face reopened his cheekbone; the next blow knocked him sideways, his head spinning. He grappled with the wall, felt cool stone under his hands, tried to pull himself back to his feet.

The man was tall, taller even than MacGyver, black-haired and bearded, and thunderous with rage. He stepped towards Jamila, who flinched back involuntarily before she could catch herself. She stiffened her back and stood up to her full height, glaring up at his face.

"You're Farouq, right? The guy that mangy cousin of mine sold me to? Well, _forget it_. You can rot in hell for all I care."

Farouq snarled an Arabic obscenity and seized a handful of Jamila's hair, wrapping it around his hand and yanking her sideways. Her shriek of pain was cut off when he backhanded her savagely across the face. She crumpled at his feet; he hauled her up again by the hair, drawing his hand back for another blow.

MacGyver launched himself at the man. He still held the gun barrel, although he'd nearly dropped it when the militant attacked; now he struck the man's arm with it. Farouq dropped Jamila and turned. He took a step back as Mac slashed at his face, opening a bleeding gash that twinned the fresh injury on his own cheek. Farouq hissed with pain and anger.

Mac tried to help Jamila up. "Can't you take a _hint_, big guy? She's an _American citizen_. Go find someone in your own weight class!"

"An American _whore_!" Farouq's eyes glittered. "You pigs ruin everything you touch – our land, our daughters – this one will stay here and learn her place!"

"How'd you find us?" Mac wondered where Moshe had gotten to. Jamila was slumped, unmoving, and he didn't dare look around behind him. He didn't see any of Farouq's men; the Hezbollah chief seemed to be alone.

Farouq smiled with contempt. "How are you feeling now, my big damned American hero? All that courage gone to waste." He brushed his fingers along the bleeding welt MacGyver had left on his face. "It was rude of you to pass out on me earlier, you know. We hadn't finished our talk. It was rude to leave my hospitality without saying good-bye. You've cost me a lot of face. But your face looks lovely. We'll do an even better job on it tomorrow."

Mac couldn't keep from wincing. "Is that why you came out here on your own? Where are your bully-boys?"

"My men are searching the town for the Israeli pig. But it was easy enough to guess where _you_ would go. When I bring you two back, my face will be restored – no-one will mock me after that." He looked around. "So where's the stinking Jew? He ran out on you, didn't he?"

"The stinking Jew is staying upwind from the stinking terrorist." Moshe stepped out from behind a toppled stone pillar, the Uzi in his hands pointed at Farouq. "Much easier to breathe that way."

Farouq moved like a striking snake. He seized MacGyver's left wrist in a grip that made Mac flinch as the calloused hand closed on the raw wounds left by the manacles. He yanked Mac off balance and twisted his arm behind him, pulling him close, swinging him around so that his body was between Moshe and Farouq.

A knife blade glittered silver in the moonlight as Farouq drew it from his belt. He had MacGyver in an armlock; he pushed the arm up higher against Mac's shoulderblades, forcing his hostage onto tiptoe, and set the blade against Mac's throat.

"Drop the gun, pig, or I'll cut his throat. You can watch him bleed to death."

The knife was honed to a razor sharpness; Farouq pressed slightly, and a faint thread of scarlet opened up at the touch. Mac felt the sting as a warm trickle ran down his neck. He tried not to breathe too deeply; a deep breath would press the skin harder against the knife.

Moshe's eyes locked on Mac's, expecting to see pain, fury, fear, even capitulation. Instead, he felt as if he was watching a turbocharged engine roar into overdrive. Mac met his look with one of fierce intensity, and glanced deliberately down at the gun barrel he still held in his almost-slack right hand. His eyes flicked back towards Farouq's hand where it held the razor edge of the knife at his throat, and then returned to meet Moshe's.

_Now here's my plan._

Moshe spoke lightly, each word dripping with contempt. "You damned Hezbollah dogs – _always_ making the stupid assumptions. Always overlooking the obvious."

"Assumptions? Obvious?" Farouq tightened his hold on Mac's twisted arm, and smirked at the resulting yelp.

"Yes, obvious! You're assuming I give a damn about some stupid American tourist caught in the crossfire. Such a pity." He hefted the Uzi and smirked. "One bullet – just _one_ – and you have no more hostage. That's as obvious as it gets, no?"

Each movement seemed separate and distinct, items checked off a list, as Moshe raised the Uzi and moved the selector lever to semiautomatic fire, leveled the gun at Farouq, then shifted his aim to point carefully and deliberately at MacGyver's head, and pulled the trigger. The crisp, metallic click of the hammer striking the bolt seemed amazingly loud, and yet barely audible to ears expecting the crack of a gunshot. Mac could even hear a faint ring to the sound as the metal of the empty magazine reverberated tinnily.

It felt as if Moshe had taken a very long time to complete the act. But Farouq had been caught, transfixed and unbelieving, for that entire agonisingly slow two seconds. Even as the click rang through the still air, Mac whipped the gun barrel up with all his strength and caught Farouq squarely in the back of his right hand. The hand spasmed automatically, the fingers slackening, the knife slicing a shallow line down Mac's neck as it fell. He pushed himself back against Farouq, twisting out of the way of the falling blade.

Mac's next blow with the barrel hit Farouq's right kneecap. The big man didn't quite lose his balance, but he was rattled; it took a moment before he gathered his wits. Mac tried to wriggle out of the armlock.

_Bad move _. . . the attempt had reminded Farouq of the hold he had on MacGyver. He yanked at the twisted arm until Mac thought his shoulder would dislocate, and caught Mac's right wrist, twisting his hand until the gun barrel dropped out of nerveless fingers, clattering onto the stone to join the fallen knife.

The massive hand was back at Mac's throat, this time choking him, but suddenly the grip slackened and the man behind him became a heavy weight dragging him earthwards. The extra pull on Mac's arm nearly broke it; Moshe caught at Farouq's body from behind and eased his fall to the ground, as MacGyver wrenched himself out of the bearlike grasp and stood, panting and sweating. He looked at Moshe as the _katsa_ let Farouq drop with a thump and stepped back.

Moshe hefted the Uzi again; he was holding it by the barrel. "That's one damned thick skull he's got. I don't think he even felt the first two whacks. But you were right. Even an empty Uzi has its uses."

Mac eased his aching shoulder, reassuring himself that the arm was still attached. He touched his throat with light fingers, glanced at the smears of blood, then knelt down by Jamila and helped her sit up. She blinked at Farouq's supine form.

"Is he dead?" She wasn't sure which answer would be more frightening.

"No, no. A skull that thick? He'll be fine. Except he'll lose so much face his beard will probably slide off. But we'll be long gone by the time he wakes up." Moshe was shaking his head. "You crazy American . . . you are one _bad_ influence."

"You're a little bit crazy yourself, y'know?"

"Yes? Well, don't tell anyone. I have a reputation to consider."

MacGyver grinned. "Yeah? Maybe I oughta worry about _my_ reputation."

"Oh, the reputation you'll have, my friend! But don't worry. I'll be sure to tell everyone that you're much crazier in person."

_~ fin ~_


End file.
